The picture that goes with our service this week is of this
wonderful small house balanced on top of a rock in the Drina River in
Serbia.
It sprung to prominence because of this photo by Hungarian
photographer Irene Becker that made the shot of the day on the National
Geographic website in 2012, you can even download it as wallpaper for your
computer… and since then the river house has become somewhat of a tourist
attraction.
But few people realised that it has been there for over 45
years. In 1969 a group of teenage boys spent much of the summer swimming in the
river and they would haul themselves out on this rock to rest and sunbath and
warm up. But while it was a peaceful place it wasn’t that comfortable. So they
used the wood from a nearby abandoned shed to build a platform on the rock.
Then the next year they floated and kayaked wood and building materials down
the river to build the house. They still use the house for holidays, time with friends
and to just get away from it all.
The rock must be solid and the house well-built because While
it may look idyllic in these pictures the house has withstood storms and
floods,…
…it’s been battered by torrents and the debris they hurl
down flood fuelled currents, sometimes just by the skin of its teeth. It’s a great illustration of the person in
Jesus parable who builds their house on the rock, the person who builds their
lives on hearing Jesus word and putting them into action… who show exceptional
love in light of God’s gracious offer of blessing, the flood comes up and the
storms rage against it but it remains solid.
Over the past month we’ve been working our way through Jesus
sermon on the plain in Luke’s gospel. Today we come to look at Jesus
conclusion: His final challenge to that large group of disciples who had
gathered to hear him. He finishes with a question and a parable to illustrate
what he is calling his followers to do. Again it’s one of Jesus most vivid word
sketches. Again like the parables of Jesus about choosing which teacher to
follow that we looked at last week it has an element of humour and absurdity
about it… I mean who builds a house without a solid foundation...Right? Who
calls Jesus “lord, Lord’ and then does not do what he says?… Again Jesus cuts
to the chase, that at the heart of being a disciple is putting into effect the
teaching of Jesus… Allowing Jesus to open our spiritual eyes and to work at
changing us at a deep heart level so the fruits our lives produce will be
Christ like…To Love our enemies and not to judge... That we will be merciful as our father is merciful.
One of the charms of the river house is the way it seems to
be precariously balance on top of such a small rock. It almost seems to defy
gravity and our better judgement doesn’t it? I don’t think it should work but
it does. Again it’s an interesting illustration of the affront of Jesus words
here that the solid foundation for life is to be found in hearing and obeying
him.
AS we’d seen Jesusrevolution of grace of good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind,
release and liberty to the prisoner and oppressed and the declaration of the
acceptable year of the Lord, had been going out to people the religious leaders
of the day thought beyond God’s blessing that it had lead Jesus more and more
into conflict with those religious leaders. In this sermon as well as giving
ethical teaching to his followers Jesus places himself as the source of the
true understanding and revelation of God. The sermon is about whose
understanding of God’s character and kingdom is right.
It’s the same challenge that Jesus gives to the world today.
The person of Jesus and living by his teaching is the only way to truly know
God and live a life of exceptional love. It’s kind of like asking us to build
our lives on that little rock that sticks up in the river… amidst the swirl of
different understandings and a current of tolerance that no one can make an
exclusive claim to spiritual authority and truth. But Jesus does. In the book of 1 Peter it
talks about Jesus as the stumbling stone for many but also that the stone that
the builder rejected has become the foundation stone, or the cap stone of the
dwelling place of God. And Jesus stands as the contrasting rock for us, like
the one in the Drina River that we either have to navigate round or land on and
build upon. NT Wright sums it up
beautifully by saying;
“Jesus radical offer
of new and abundant life is so all embracing and hence so all-demanding , that
people try to find alternative ways. But they must be resisted, or the house
will come down with a crash.”
In Jesus
question about what it means to call him Lord, Lord and the subsequent parable
we see that at the heart of discipleship is not knowledge but obedience, it’s
not hearing but putting into action. It’s not about having the plan but doing
the building. Earlier in the year we worked our way through the book of James and saw how James talks of faith and says that faith without works is dead.
While historically people have taken that and wrestled with it at a deep
theological level, how does it impact on the doctrine of salvation by grace not
works, and they are good discussions to have, but for James it was very much
like Jesus that our faith in Jesus should result in showing kindness and
exceptional love. If you remember in James it was about resisting the pull of
seeking status and comfort but rather to be caring for the poor and the
disenfranchised. It was hearing Jesus words and putting them into practise.
John Blanchard comments… (click for quote on screen)
“It is only when we add the discipleship of obedience to the
raw material of truth that we have a structure that will stand the test of
life.”
It is most popular to think of the floods and torrents
mentioned in Jesus parable as difficulties and troubles that can enter our
lives and threaten to tear it all down. We use storm and rough waters as a way
of talking about those things. It is true and comforting to know that this
passage says that in knowing Jesus and putting his words into action in our
lives we have a solid foundation that will resist and preserve through those troubles
and storms. But we can miss some other truth from Jesus words here.
The first is that putting Jesus words into practise from this
sermon give us the solid foundation for standing and withstanding floods of
injustice and currents of evil in our world. In the many different pictures of
the river house the one constant in drought and flood, still mornings or stormy
days where you can just make it out amidst the deluge is the flow and current
of the river, yet the rock and the house remain solid. The way to stand against
injustice to effect change is to be about that exceptional love of Jesus. Detrick Bonhoeffer in his letters from prison
talks of ministering both to fellow prisoners and with equal compassion
ministering to his captors. While he had written a famous book on Jesus Sermon
on the Mount it was only in that situation that he actually learned what it
meant to put Jesus words into practise… We see the impact of non-violence in
the civil rights movement and Ghandi’s use of Jesus teaching in his struggle
for Indian independence. On a more personal level… When we talked about lovingour enemies I used the example of John Perkins a black American pastor and
activist who was beaten by the Mississippi State Troopers and yet continued to
work for justice and the gospel in that state… later in life Perkins was asked
how did you overcome racism and bigotry…? and he replied “
We don’t like to think of God’s judgement that often, but
this parable very much picks up the wording of the prophecy in Ezekiel 13 where
God talks of sending storms and floods to tear down the shonkely built religion
and state of Judea, founded on the words of the false prophets. The house in
Ezekiel looked good on the outside it was whitewashed, a term that has come
into our vocabulary from that passage to mean a cover up, here the whitewash
tried to hide the building being structurally unsound. But God sees through the whitewash, God sees to the
heart and so God would send his judgement. Jesus teaching here was to a large
group of disciples gathered from all over the region and it acts as a way of sifting
them and us. To distinguish between those whose affirmation of Jesus Lordship
is nominal, or only on the surface, and those who embrace his message and let
it flow into the very heart of them to the point that it begins to flow out
again in such practises as those
outlines in his sermon. It is this last group that are genuine in addressing
Jesus with the words “Lord, Lord”.
Finally I want to
briefly look at two ways this passage speaks to us today…
The first is a challenge to the church. Many commentators
make a link between what Jesus is saying here and the great building project of
Jesus day: Herod’s temple refurbishments in Jerusalem. In Mark’s gospel on the
afternoon of Jesus triumphant entry they go sightseeing and Jesus disciples
point to the wonder and splendour of the temple and Jesus says that it will be
destroyed. Again it is not built on a firm foundation of obeying and living out
God’s word in Christ… So it will not stand with the shift of empires. The
church has built some amazing structures, both buildings and organisations. They
are wonderful and amazing, some even stand the test of time. Sometimes however it
is easy to see what we have built makes us seem more like the Pharisees who
resisted Jesus teaching rather than Jesus and his revolution of grace. In New
Zealand after the Christchurch earthquakes we have been asked to look at our
buildings and our foundations to see if they are up to scratch. And it is a
call for us to hear Jesus says that’s a good idea as well. It is a call to hear
Paul’s call to the Corinthians that we had read out today, to look at what we
have built on the foundation of Christ, or really if we are building on that
foundation. Reformation and renewal and revival come from Jesus call at the end
of his sermon on the plain to look to build on putting his teaching into
action.
Lastly, that Jesus speaks directly to us individually today.
This concluding parable has the feel of a TV show or a film where the fourth
wall is broken. Where an actor turns from his filmic reality and looks or
speaks directly to the camera as if aware of who is watching. It has the feel
of the picture of a boat on tossing waves in CS Lewis’s ‘The voyage of the Dawn
Treader” in the Narnia series where the water in the picture begins to spill
into the very room the children are in. Because Jesus question talks of calling
him “Lord, Lord” and at this stage in Luke’s gospel only two people have called
Jesus Lord, Peter after the great catch of fish, and the leprous man whom Jesus
heals, and his saying isn’t a critique of those two. Rather Jesus is speaking
in a proleptic manner (Don’t worry I didn’t know what that meant either). He is
speaking forwards to all who would later call him Lord Lord… the readers of
Luke’s gospel and on into this room here today… and to those who read this on my blogsite...
… On what will you build your life? Have you found the rock
the solid foundation for life of hearing Jesus words and putting them into
action?...
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